


A Cool Hand

by buckynotbuchanan (type_40_consulting_detective)



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Foster Care, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6739396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/type_40_consulting_detective/pseuds/buckynotbuchanan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton, 14 years old at the time, sneaks into a theater and finds the inspiration for the rest of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cool Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of hopefully several short pieces written under the Story A Day May challenge at www.storyaday.org  
> The promt was to use the last line from a favorite book as the last line of your piece. It was also to ony use 100 words, but that wasn't happening. Hope you enjoy this bite size bit of Clint Barton feels.

In the dark of the theater, tucked down in the back, Clint watched the doors between lines of dialog. He'd never snuck in a theater before, but it wasn't hard at this little place. They weren't even trying, he thought. The movie wasn't new, none of the ones here were, and he didn't know what was showing before he came in. He just needed some cool darkness, somewhere to hide.

About twenty minutes into the sparsely attended showing, he decided that no one was coming to rush him out and kick him onto his ass, so he settled in to absorb the show. Movies were his favorite thing; big productions, and little campy art house affairs, old and new. He'd even gone to see a few reshowing of silent films, complete with pianist, with his dad before...

He'd been a good kid, once. A kid who wouldn't have snuck into theaters. A kid who hadn't ever needed to. In the two years since the accident that robbed him of half his hearing, both his parents, and the close bond with his older brother Barney, he'd become a teen hiding in the back of an arthouse, watching fucking Paul Newman resist authority, and escape prison.

That's who he ought to be, he thought. Just like that, smart mouthing back to the man, not letting anything get to him. Taking life as if everything that happened in the world was for his benefit, like in a movies. Better than crying again. Better that hating his brother, who was out of the system now and didn't come take Clint with him. 

The further in to the movie it got, the more it steels Clint's resolve. Even to the very end, Luke, the anti-hero of it all, was doing everything on his own terms, unbroken by his mother's loss or his awful treatment. If Clint could absorb half that bravado and make it is own, he'd never have to worry again. 

Clint left before the theater lights went up, missing the credits, his mind on how to be like that. How to be calm in the face of everything. For starters, he decided not to go back yet. He had a few hours still until curfew at the group home. He wanted some of the nonchalance mastered before facing Mr Vernon and his never ending list of chores, and his drunken berating of his wife and their charges. Besides, if he waited until most people were leaving work, he could put on some sad eyes and hitch a ride the two miles back, saving himself some time. He's got to escape it all, but he didn't know how, and he was certainly not ready for a life on the run now. He still looked young enough to get hauled in truant if he ditched classes.

He's so focused on that fact, he all but trips over his own feet at the sight on a beat cop, and puts his head down, walking determined into the library. The officer gave him a cursory glance, after coming out of a no outlet alley behind both bar and theater, but Clint at least has the good sense not to dress like trouble when he went out to cause it. On a display in the front, the was a poster board proclaiming /Read the book before you see the movie!/ and a half dozen copies of The Outsiders. 

It's better than wandering about, he figured, and picked up one before hiding away in a far corner. Opening the crisp, almost new copy to the first page, he lets out a laugh that send a matronly librarian darting around the towering shelves to tell him off. He acts contrite, and she leaves him to it with no more than a scowl. Right there, in black and white in a book older than he is, he can already see himself in this character too.

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind. Paul Newman, and a ride home."


End file.
